


Here we stand

by LadyKG



Series: AizenxIchigo Time Travel [1]
Category: Bleach
Genre: Fix-It, Ichigo and Aizen become Soul King, Light Angst, M/M, Sort Of, Time Travel, mostly in the beginning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-06
Updated: 2018-12-06
Packaged: 2019-09-12 14:45:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16874805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyKG/pseuds/LadyKG
Summary: Ywach was dead and so was everyone else and they were the Soul King, and they were going to change it all.





	Here we stand

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BoyGirlBothNoneImTheUniverse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BoyGirlBothNoneImTheUniverse/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Blind Spots](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16568522) by [BoyGirlBothNoneImTheUniverse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BoyGirlBothNoneImTheUniverse/pseuds/BoyGirlBothNoneImTheUniverse). 



> So... I'm blaming BoyGirlBothNoneImTheUniverse for my urge to write this, because they wrote some really really amazing time travel AizenxIchigo fics and well, we all know I can't resist writing time travel... so yea... anyway...

Ywach was dead.

Ywach was dead and it took them _years,_ but he was finally, _finally_ dead.

Ywach was dead and it took them years, but he was finally, finally dead, and so was everyone else.

Ywach was dead and so was everyone else and they were the Soul King. Him and Sousuke. Ichigo didn’t even understand how it happened. How, after all the years of fighting, of trying so hard to stop the man from ascending the thrown it didn’t matter. It never mattered. All those lives lost became so meaningless when the thrown itself rejected Ywach. When the throne itself denied the man the power it held and the right to look over the worlds. When the throne itself latched onto Ichigo and Aizen with a ferocity that sent them to their knees as power – thick and strange – entered them all at once.

They were the Soul King. Both of them.

Ywach was dead and so was everyone else and they were the Soul King, and they were going to change it _all._ Because there was nothing left to balance. Nothing left to rebuild when those homes would lay empty. Nothing left because the war had taken so much and given nothing back. Years of battle, and Ichigo wasn’t even sure what it was all for.

“We’ll fix this,” he told Sousuke, gaze ablaze with a determination that he wasn’t sure was really there. “We’ll save them.”

Brown eyes met his, fingers lacing into his, power joining his.

“Yes,” Sousuke nodded, “we will.”

They were the Soul King.

Time meant nothing.

In the span of a second the throne room stood empty and that future began to crumble.

 

 

 

“Should we stop it?” Ichigo asked as they came to a stop in the sky above Sokyoku hill. It was strange, he had to admit, watching his younger self face off against Aizen. A strangeness that was so easily drowned out by the sight of his friends, alive and whole and not worn down by war and _alive._ It made his chest tighten, frown deepening as he clenched his fists so hard he felt his bones ache. He forced his mind to clear. Forced himself to take his eyes off of them.

Sousuke hummed from his place next to him, their shoulders brushing as they watched the scene play out. But he did not move forward or back, his brown gaze meeting Ichigo’s from the corner of their eyes. It would be his decision then.

“I’m going to kick your ass,” he told the man pointedly. It earned him a raised eyebrow which Ichigo matched with a growing smirk, “Unless you wanted the honors?”

And _that_ earned him a chuckle, quiet but there and Ichigo felt his smirk turn soft and humored at the edges. “By all means, darling,” Sousuke waved his arm towards the hill in a grand sweeping gesture, the dramatic bastard, “if you feel like you can handle it.”

Ichigo huffed, “I’ll handle _you_ ,” but there was a spark in his eyes matched by Sousuke and it loosened the tightness in his chest, if only a little. He didn’t bother waiting for a response, blurring into a flash-step that slid him between Aizen’s reaching blade and his younger self, his shorter sword blocking the strike with an ease that Ichigo found almost disappointing. He wasn’t even Soul King anymore, did not own half the crown, because the Soul King of this time still held the title. Because something had to be given up for them to return.

There were startled shouts from those around him, but it was the shock in Aizen’s gaze that made Ichigo smile, sharp and excited. Sadly, the man gathered his composure enough to shutter his expression, a blank look taking over. “Well, isn’t this a surprise.”

“What the hell?” He heard his younger self ask, but he didn’t look back.

Tousen attacked from the side, but Ichigo simply moved enough to let the blade pass his by as he brought Shiro up in a strike that practically cut the man in half. He could feel his hollow’s joy at the bloodshed, practically vibrating for more.

Aizen didn’t even spare a glance for Tousen’s fallen form. His gaze sweeping over Ichigo with calculated eyes, whatever he found must satisfy him if the self-assured smirk that crossed his face was anything to go by. “So I win.”

“What?”

“What other reason would you have to come to the past?” Aizen raised a brow, his smirk becoming more smug by the second. The comment gave way to murmurs from behind him, that were all too easily ignored. “I’m right, and I not?” Aizen continued at Ichigo’s continued silence, the man took careful steps towards him, emboldened now with his imagined victory, “Do you really think you can defeat me when you couldn’t before? With all that future knowledge, surely you realize it is better to join me.” Ichigo could feel Aizen’s reiatsu rising.

The man stopped a mere foot from him, hand held out as if in offering just as his shikai released. It was entertaining, he had to say, to watch as the Aizen in front of him became blurred, fuzzy around the edges and slightly transparent, the real Aizen stepping back and to the right.

Ichigo opened his mouth to respond, because it was all he could do not to laugh – Aizen’s illusions never affected him before, and they wouldn’t now – but the sound was lost as he felt Sousuke appear behind him. Arms wrapped around his waist, pulling him a few extra inches away from fake Aizen’s reaching hand, as a chin came to rest on his shoulder. The look that crossed the real Aizen’s face in that moment made him want to cackle; the confusion, and then sudden realization of not only _who_ was holding Ichigo, but what it _meant_ was priceless.

(There was a strangled sound behind him – multiple, really, and one of them distinctly sounded like himself. It brought back memories of blushing at every sexual encounter, of being unsure and lacking confidence in his understanding on relationships and how they worked.)

“I said I had this.”

“You said you were going to ‘kick my ass’,” Sousuke told him, his breath ghosting over Ichigo’s cheek as he spoke. “And yet all you’ve done is _talk._ ”

Ichigo couldn’t hold in the roll of his eyes even if he wanted to. He slipped out of Sousuke’s hold, stepping around the fake Aizen even as it lifted its sword to attack. The illusion couldn’t hurt him, no matter how real it looked. (Sousuke had explained it to him once; that his hypnosis was perfect because it encompassed all the senses, and because of that people _believed_ it, therefore the wounds themselves would appear to those lost in that belief.)

It took only a few intricate combinations of flash-step that would have made his Yoruichi proud, a few clashes of their blades, and a sharp strike to the back of his head to knock Aizen out. The man underestimated him, and that made it all the easier. Ichigo looked at the prone form at his feet and pointedly ignored the way Shiro was practically screaming at him to kill the asshole. Instead he reached down and took the horyoku from the man’s robes.

He didn’t kill him. He didn’t kill him not because he _couldn’t_ , but because there was the chance that he and Sousuke won’t be able to take up the mantle of Soul King again. That, because they are displaced in time, it would reject them. And if that was the case, then they’d need this time’s Aizen alive.

“How was that for kicking your ass?” Ichigo asked, giving Sousuke a teasing grin as he made his way towards him and the rest of the Shinigami. “I even surprised you.”

The man simply scoffed, muttering something that Ichigo couldn’t quite catch but sounded suspiciously like _‘you always do’._

“So,” Ichigo said, voice light, as he held the hogyoku in his hand, “you think you can destroy it?”

“Unlikely,” Sousuke told him, reaching out and taking it from his hand to inspect it. “We’ll need to wait until we’re soul king again.”

“Soul king?” Juushirou muttered at the same time that Kyoraku pulled at his hat with a sharp, “again?’

“What is the meaning of this?” Yama-ji finally spoke, anger clear in his voice.

“Uh, well, you see…” Ichigo started, trailing off as he glanced at Sousuke who looked back with a blank stare, entirely unhelpful. He let out a sigh, “It’s a long story.”


End file.
